{BOOK 2} Percy Jackson's Sister

So You Think Your Family's Bad?

     "Can't this thing go any faster?" Thalia complained.

    Zoë glared at her. "I cannot control traffic."

    "Can you guys at least not complain about what we can't control," I said.

   "All three of you sound like my mother," Percy said.

   "Shut up!" we hissed at him in unison.

    Zoë switched from lane to lane trying to kill traffic to no avail. By the time we got off the highway, the sun was getting dangerously close to the horizon.

    Zoë kept the same speed, but the roads became more dangerous. They narrowed down to single lanes on the side of the hills, winding every which way, making me slightly carsick.

    The air was filled with a medicinal smell and I scrunched my nose, not really enjoy the scent.

    "Why does everything smell like cough drops?" Percy asked.

    "Eucalyptus." Zoë gestured to the trees all around us.

    "The stuff koala bears eat?"

     "And monsters," she said. "They love chewing the leaves. Especially dragons."   

     "Dragons chew eucalyptus leaves?"

     "Believe me," Zoë said, "if you had dragon breath, you would chew eucalyptus too."

      Something told me I didn't want to know why she knew that.

    Suddenly, a huge shadow was cast above our car. Mount Tamalpais loomed hugely above us.

   "So that's the Mountain of Despair?" Percy sighed.

   "Yes," Zoe voice sounded strained.

   I stifled a laugh. "Translated, that means country of tamales."

   "Why do they call it that?" Percy asked.

    "Maybe they were hungry when they named it," I shrugged.

     He nudged me in the rib. "I meant the Mountain of Despair."

    Zoë drove for a while in silence before answering. "After the war between the Titans and the gods, many of the Titans were punished and imprisoned. Kronos was sliced to pieces and thrown into Tartarus. Kronos's right-hand man, the general of his forces, was imprisoned up there, on the summit, just beyond the Garden of the Hesperides."

    "The General," Percy concluded.

     Clouds seemed to be funneling at the peak of the mountains, almost like something was drawing it there. They swirled ominously overhead.

   "What's going on up there?" I pointed. "A storm?"

     This time Zoë didn't offer an answer. I dreaded that she knew exactly what was going on and she didn't want to tell us.

  "We have to concentrate," Thalia said. "The Mist is really strong here."

    "Capitol M Mist or...?" I let my question trail out.

    "Both."

     The gray clouds kept coming closer, no matter how loud my mind was yelling at me to run away from them. The space was becoming more open, less of a forrest and more of a mountain side.

    I felt Percy tense up next to me and he pressed his face against the window. "Look!"

    As he said that, we turned a corner, but I managed a quick glance at what he was pointing at. I really wished I hadn't.